Comments on: New Here? The “ten second” guide to the world of skeptics

By: Rereke Whakaaro

Rereke Whakaaro — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 20:39:12 +0000

… run by Soviet technocrats …

Actually, mismanaged by Soviet bureaucrats – quotas to meet, and all that.

By: Sue Censi

Sue Censi — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:09:53 +0000

The earth’s climate has always run in cycles.
When Douglas Mawson went with his team to explore Antarctica, he had various tasks to complete. Amongst these obligations Mawson searched for minerals, examined animal specimens and looked in to the cause of the world’s climate change. This was initially in 1912 (Mawson earlier worked British & then Australian expeditions) and sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Mawson’s finding on cause of any change in climate was that the sun was driving the world’s ocean currents.
Through his ocean and ice core investigations Mawson realised that the world’s climate had been perpetually changing.
Our Antarctic scientific team are still utilising and extending Mawson’s methods for climate research today, and it’s known that the earth’s climate responds to changes in solar output.
To say that climate change is only a modern, manmade and recent event due to industrial emissions is to discredit the extraordinary work of a great Australian – Sir Douglas Mawson.

The Advertiser (Adelaide) 23rd June 1934 had the headline – ‘Cause Of Dry Weather in SA, Effect of Antarctic Influences – Sir Douglas Mawson’s Views’. This article reiterates that Sir Douglas Mawson had found proof that the earth’s climate was variable and cyclic. It states ‘ Sir Douglas Mawson added that scientists had contended for years that the radiant energy from the sun was affected by sunspots, and data gathered seemed in a broad way to support the view.’

In the Cairns Post 3rd February 1934 both Sir Douglas Mawson and Dr C E P Brooks (authority on polar/climate connection) had determined that the change of climate is due to the approaching end of the solar induced Pleistocene ice age.

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By: Joe V.

Joe V. — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:45:00 +0000

Ben, you might try a Web search , including the words:- norsk hydro convert abbott

Here’s a couple such results

http://privatebriefing.com.au/2012/05/23/carbon-tax-not-to-blame-for-kurri-kurri-closurepm/

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/smartphone/article.aspx?id=8472116

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By: Ben Ziesmer

Ben Ziesmer — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:40:50 +0000

Where can I find comments by Abbott and Combet?

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By: Ben Ziesmer

Ben Ziesmer — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:39:57 +0000

How can I find Abbott and Combet comments?

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By: Joe V.

Joe V. — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:57:05 +0000

Your point has not been missed Ben. While it seems to be precipitated by more immediate problems, Abbott is highlighting how Carbon Tax must contribute to such an assessment, while Combet denies it & Gilliared pleads solidarity with the workers !

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By: Ben Ziesmer

Ben Ziesmer — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:25:03 +0000

Today, Norsk Hydro announced it was closing its 180,000-tonnes-per-year Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter in Australia due to low metals prices and a dismal economic outlook. Norsk Hydro said nothing about the Australian Carbon tax. Would it be legal for them to say the Carbon Tax is part of the reason for the smelter’s closing? Do you have any additional insight?

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By: brc

brc — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:49:01 +0000

All what we have comes from petrol, from energy to plastic to every common material

Wrong. Immensely wrong. While liquid fuels are important for transportation energy, they are in no way the main energy supply.

Petrol is running out and its increasing price is the biggest evidence

Evidence for Petrol (I assume you mean oil) running out? Have you gone to a station recently and found they had no petrol? No?

Petrol is, inflation adjusted, about as cheap as it was in the 1970s. Much of the price increase comes from government taxes. If you’re worried about petrol breaching the $1.50/litre barrier, take a look at central banks more than oil companies. The oil/gold ratio is as stable as it ever was. It’s the bits of paper used to purchase the oil that are going down in price.

If we don’t change our economical (sic) system now and convert it to renewable energy, when petrol runs out we’ll be in the biggest crisis ever!

For a start, any decline in oil production will be gradual, not sudden. There will be plenty of price signalling when this is starting to occur. Increases in prices for conventional oil signals increasing production in non-conventional oil and alternative energies. There is enough natural gas around to power us for centuries yet.

It is far worse to force the use of inefficient technologies now while efficient technologies are still available. It might sound like a bunch of roses on a sunny day to ‘force’ everyone to use solar and wind power, but in reality what that represents is a drastically lower standard of living for everyone.

The argument to stop using the current best technology we have in case it runs out is one of the most ridiculous arguments going around. You cannot run the world on renewable energy, and it is futile, ridiculous and dangerous to even try. You’re effectively saying that this generation is the smartest that humans will ever get to be, so we should lock in our current technology and forcibly remove any others.

The stone age didn’t end because they ran out of stones. Think about this next time you go off on an emotional, fact free rant.

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By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:42:50 +0000

everybody knows that C and O are essential for life; green movements are really big now and the more power they have the more probably someone will take advantage of it. climate change won’t destroy the planet, earth will survive anyway. I don’t think it will end the human race either.
Still think about three major facts:
1 I find hard to believe that most of the scientists are lying about the climate change.
2 Jo Nova admits climate is warming. I’m not a scientist and I don’t know if it’s because of CO2. It’s true earth during its history warmed up and cooled down, but it usually thousands of years. If the world has actually warmed up quickly in the last century, shouldn’t we think it MIGHT be our fault? It appears strange to me that nobody thought about it.
3 Jo nova and other skeptics say that we could end up changing our economical system for nothing. But let’s say the climate change doesn’t depend on our actions. All what we have comes from petrol, from energy to plastic to every common material. Petrol is running out and its increasing price is the biggest evidence. If we don’t change our economical system now and convert it to renewable energy, when petrol runs out we’ll be in the biggest crisis ever!

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By: Wayne Delbeke

Wayne Delbeke — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:47:07 +0000

Thought this might be of interest to you:

This is an email to Steve McIntyre —–>

I posted the following at WUWT. Thought you might be interested in it.

Wayne Delbeke, P.Eng.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dr Brown: I have enjoyed your posts as you clearly have an open and enquiring mind.

I just listened to one of your Canadian Colleaques, Dr. W. R. Peltier of the University of Toronto berate the scientists who wrote an “opposing” article to the WSJ. He repeatedly and with considerable vehemence called them deniers on our public radio system on a program called Quirks and Quarks – with a very warmist host, Bob MacDonald. http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/

Interesting on this page was notification of the shutting down of the Canadian weather station at Eureka, Nunavit, Canada – which is a bit sad given it is a good arctic weather station. There were excellent discussions with this person on WUWT about their efforts to acquire good data and how wind direction affected their temperature readings. A very rational and good discussion as compared to Dr. Peltier’s repeated use of the word “denier” as an epithet in his interview when discussion his fellow scientists who wrote the WSJ article.

Very unprofessional considering he was belittling him on National Radio that is heard not only in Canada but a good part of the USA. I was embarrassed for him and his fellow warming scientists but I suppose when facts fail you, throwing epithets is the only option left to the uneducated.

Sadly, this was related to his winning an award with a 1 million dollar prize associated with it:
“Dr. Richard Peltier, University Professor of Physics at the University of Toronto and founding director of U of T’s Centre for Global Change Science, is this year’s winner of Canada’s highest prize for science, the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering.”

What bothers me even more – I am an Engineer, and in our Association of Professional Engineers Geologists and Geophysicist Association, there has been considerable rational debate on the issue of global warming without this type of nasty attribution in our letters to the editor and other articles (at least in the ones I have read).

I embarrassed to see the word “Engineering” in the name of the award that he received as given the way he used the words “deniers” in his he used in his interview, a Professional Engineer might be subject to disciplinary action for making this kind of accusation against his peers.

I am in total shock that such a person would make such a diatribe.
Listen here: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/media/2011-2012/qq-2012-03-03_05.mp3

Sadly, he will use his 1 million dollar award to hire graduate students and post doctorate fellows to prove out his holistic earth “MODEL” to “Make Projections”. In other words, it appears he want them go look for data that will support his conclusions and “TUNE” his models to match reality as opposed to the real science of analyzing data and developing a conclusion.

As far as Dr. Peltier is concerned, it seems, he considers the science is settled. He is a modeler. And we all know about GIGO. So he is really a garbage collector. He needs to take the garbage out …. so we can get back to science.

He wants to develop models to project/predict client 100 years out.

The interview sounds fairly reasonable until he gets to the denier comments except where he claims the “ensemble of independent models” is very accurate. Another theory of averages – average the models and get an accurate result. Amazing. You can make bad data good simply by averaging.

He really goes on about forcings versus feedbacks.

But perhaps I am overreacting.

It would be nice to have some third party comments on his interview.

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